I don't really agree there, as presumably the target of these criticisms along with Roger. Individuals are endlessly variable worldwide, and cultures emphasise or privilege specific traits. All French are not romantic seducers, for instance, but their culture will privilege individuals with those traits. That in turn affects the emphases of the majority.
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
70% of Iran’s oil goes to CHINA at mates rates discount. If Trump handpicks the next Iranian leader, that oil deal might quite possibly change. Do we assume China is just sat there watching, like a spectator?
China has stockpiled 1.5b barrels of oil.
"Xi Jinping can comfortably tough out a global oil shock for longer than Trump can endure the political heat of exorbitant petrol prices in America."
“A TikTok influencer who tried to solve a real-life murder case using spiritual intuition has now been ordered to pay millions for it. Ashley Guillard, a Texas-based content creator known for her tarot card readings on high-profile cases, found herself on the losing end of a defamation lawsuit.
“She accused University of Idaho history professor Rebecca Scofield of masterminding the 2022 murders of four students, all based on what she called her psychic insights. A federal jury in Boise didn't buy it, hitting Guillard with a $10 million judgment on February 27, 2026.”
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
If reports are true the Iranians are due to elect a new Supreme Leader via teleconferencing. Sensibly they dont want all US hitlist targets in one place.
On the other hand given the recent revelations on Tehran traffic cameras and Mossad, I can see Bibi with a bucket of popcorn watching proceedings.
Or even more Trump joining in the teleconference and telling them all who to vote for,
“Sorry I’m a bit late. Had to do those letters to prove I’m human” “No problem. Ok, shall we start with some introductions? Mojtaba, do you want to kick us off” …. “You’re on mute Mojtaba” “Oops sorry. There was a lot of background noise. Can you hear me now?” “You’re cracking up a bit” “We seem to have list Mojtaba” “Ok, while we’re waiting shall we quickly touch on the Cyprus plans?” “Hi, I’m back”
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
If only you hadn’t been so overly cautious in France, the war could have been over quicker. If it was down to you, D-Day would have 1947! And the Germans would have nuked us by then.
You ain’t no Winston Churchill.
Winston Churchill wanted delay D-Day and did several times. He wanted the size of the initial assault increased. And it was, several times.
In the end, he was proved right - on the British and Canadian beaches, Hobart's Funnies made a critical difference. The Americans were nearly beaten back at Omaha, despite the increased scale of the landings over the original plans.
Another critical factor was the specialist landing craft and support vessels. Which only became available in the required numbers at the start of 1944
James Holland and Al Murray consistently make the point that Allied operations ran about 6 months ahead of their actual capacity to deliver them. The ambition of the Americans to get on with the job needed tempering to allow the material needed to be available.
Sorry to say but I rather enjoyed this Guardian article about the discomfiture of the Dubai-based tax exiles caught in the cross-hairs. Obvs don't wish any of them harm (Mr Tice, please note), but heh.
"Alongside the wealth managers, property agents and taut-skinned trophy wives who always accompany the mega-rich, it attracted its share of Reform-supporting X blue ticks banging on from their beach clubs about London supposedly going to the dogs; influencers seeking luxury backdrops for their unboxing videos; crypto guys, tech bros, and assorted hustlers. But many rungs down the financial ladder behind them came an army of younger temporary workers to clean their pools and nanny for their kids and teach them pilates, many of whom have families back home now worried sick. Gloat if you must that they are now finding out why other people stay home in the rain, but schadenfreude is a grim look when fellow human beings are sleeping in their basements as the tyrannical Iranian regime tries to kill them."
Not great for the slaves though, who don't have the option of another bolthole, possibly with some tax payable this time
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
To quote Wikipedia: “Despite no markings, experts believe the munition uses a computer processor manufactured by the American company Altera, RF modules by Analog Devices and LDO chips by Microchip Technology.”
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
70% of Iran’s oil goes to CHINA at mates rates discount. If Trump handpicks the next Iranian leader, that oil deal might quite possibly change. Do we assume China is just sat there watching, like a spectator?
China has stockpiled 1.5b barrels of oil.
"Xi Jinping can comfortably tough out a global oil shock for longer than Trump can endure the political heat of exorbitant petrol prices in America."
Another year, another crisis, another illustration of the madness of the world’s continued addiction to fossil fuels. And its reflex, like an NRA campaigner after a school shooting, that the solution is more of the same.
X BBC Breakfast@BBCBreakfast 'Yes, we can take down sites that are anticipating attacking our people'
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told #BBCBreakfast 'defensive action' could include targeting military positions in Iran that could hit UK interests in the Middle East https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/
Andrew Neil@afneil I really think he’s just making it up as he goes along. Are we really going to consider taking out Iranian missiles sites? That would effectively join us with Israel and the US in their attacks on Iran. Does he really mean that? And with what would we attack them? PS to this former foreign secretary — Cyprus is not in NATO. Ask the Turks. https://x.com/afneil/status/2029867385809748461
Andrew Neil@afneil It’s now clear Lammy (not for the first time) has put his foot in it. 10 Downing St now launching a clean up operation. These people are simply out of their depth — bad enough in peacetime but a deadly drawback in time of war. https://x.com/afneil/status/2029874894335275358
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
"They brought it on themselves" and "no choice" are non-starters when it comes to justifying attacks on civilians.
What about German civilians who voted for Hitler, in full knowledge of his anti-Semitic insanities?
Millions of Germans did that. Voted for Hitler. And he didn't hide his desires vis a vis Jews or conquering Europe, he wrote entire books about them, prior to his elections
To me that partly justified the bombing of German cities in WW2. Not that it needed justifying, the mere fact that they started the war, brutally invaded everyone, started killing Jews and "sub-humans" from the get-go, and then started the mass bombing of British towns, makes for a just cause in itself.
Well, yes.
The lesson from this, and from Putin's writings, is always to take these people at face value or, if you like, their own value. Don't over-interpret.
If they write, or speak, like megalomaniac sociopaths then guess what, they are megalomaniac sociopaths. Act accordingly.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
70% of Iran’s oil goes to CHINA at mates rates discount. If Trump handpicks the next Iranian leader, that oil deal might quite possibly change. Do we assume China is just sat there watching, like a spectator?
China has stockpiled 1.5b barrels of oil.
"Xi Jinping can comfortably tough out a global oil shock for longer than Trump can endure the political heat of exorbitant petrol prices in America."
Another year, another crisis, another illustration of the madness of the world’s continued addiction to fossil fuels. And its reflex, like an NRA campaigner after a school shooting, that the solution is more of the same.
Both US and ChIna have about 120 days of oil imports in stockpiles/commercial storage.
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
"They brought it on themselves" and "no choice" are non-starters when it comes to justifying attacks on civilians.
What about German civilians who voted for Hitler, in full knowledge of his anti-Semitic insanities?
Millions of Germans did that. Voted for Hitler. And he didn't hide his desires vis a vis Jews or conquering Europe, he wrote entire books about them, prior to his elections
To me that partly justified the bombing of German cities in WW2. Not that it needed justifying, the mere fact that they started the war, brutally invaded everyone, started killing Jews and "sub-humans" from the get-go, and then started the mass bombing of British towns, makes for a just cause in itself.
Well, yes.
The lesson from this, and from Putin's writings, is always to take these people at face value or, if you like, their own value. Don't over-interpret.
If they write, or speak, like megalomaniac sociopaths then guess what, they are megalomaniac sociopaths. Act accordingly.
Especially when they are pouring their hearts out.
Peter Hitchens and Sarah Vine are usually pretty cordial on their podcast, but they have a big row about Iran here, which has carried over to X. Interesting listen
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
If only you hadn’t been so overly cautious in France, the war could have been over quicker. If it was down to you, D-Day would have 1947! And the Germans would have nuked us by then.
You ain’t no Winston Churchill.
Winston Churchill wanted delay D-Day and did several times. He wanted the size of the initial assault increased. And it was, several times.
In the end, he was proved right - on the British and Canadian beaches, Hobart's Funnies made a critical difference. The Americans were nearly beaten back at Omaha, despite the increased scale of the landings over the original plans.
Another critical factor was the specialist landing craft and support vessels. Which only became available in the required numbers at the start of 1944
James Holland and Al Murray consistently make the point that Allied operations ran about 6 months ahead of their actual capacity to deliver them. The ambition of the Americans to get on with the job needed tempering to allow the material needed to be available.
My God, that's a whole new universe of Ultra-Cringe
Keir, I implore you, please: get some bloody voice training. It's like nails down a blackboard.
His nasal speaking voice is pure evil. He has Myra Hindley for a larynx!
He has the most annoying speaking voice to my ears of any PM since Thatcher. He is however prefetable to Rachel Reeves.
Not his fault. Just the way things are. He won the lottwry on hair, but not on voice.
Much as I felt about Brave Sir Boris. Goodness he was very affected and annoying.
Yes but your dislike for Boris is so great that he is literally the worst PM in every category. I'm sure you would have also found him the worst writer and the worst game show host and the worst after dinner speaker. His voice annoyed you because it was Boris's voice.
Faytuks Network @FaytuksNetwork · 3h BREAKING: Azerbaijan is withdrawing diplomats from Iran, closing its embassy in Tehran, and raising the readiness of its military forces, the Azerbaijani FM says
This may have been noted already (apols if so) but not often Labour has something to celebrate, election-wise.
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6) Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5) Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New) Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0) Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
I'm sure this will make Smotrich reassess his life choices.
Kill them, kill them all!
Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 @ejmalrai 1h BreakingNews: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's son, a soldier in the Israeli forces, has been hit and severely wounded during a fire exchange with Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
70% of Iran’s oil goes to CHINA at mates rates discount. If Trump handpicks the next Iranian leader, that oil deal might quite possibly change. Do we assume China is just sat there watching, like a spectator?
China has stockpiled 1.5b barrels of oil.
"Xi Jinping can comfortably tough out a global oil shock for longer than Trump can endure the political heat of exorbitant petrol prices in America."
Another year, another crisis, another illustration of the madness of the world’s continued addiction to fossil fuels. And its reflex, like an NRA campaigner after a school shooting, that the solution is more of the same.
Both US and ChIna have about 120 days of oil imports in stockpiles/commercial storage.
Malmsy, Rotten That’s not the answer to what I was putting though. 120 days is short term. I was putting it there, 70% of Iran’s Oil on mates rates to China. Contract Over. Gone in the short, Medium and LONG term.
If you were in charge of any country on earth faced with that, would you be sanguine, gardening in potting shed right now?
Bibi has more than enough to win his election - he expect the plug to be pulled any moment. Trump needs to be helped onto the off ramp pretty damn quick.
The belief that military options (which on a very basic level involve the cruelllest things imaginable) are made OK or not OK depending on the word of a lawyer, is disturbing. In previous centuries armies had to be blessed by priests. Now it's lawyers. I'm not convinced this is progress.
You're saying it's a bad thing that we put some hurdles in the way of going to war ?
No. It's better to have a "lawyer says OK" than not to have it. But I am saying it obscures the nature of war.
I'm sure this will make Smotrich reassess his life choices.
Kill them, kill them all!
Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 @ejmalrai 1h BreakingNews: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's son, a soldier in the Israeli forces, has been hit and severely wounded during a fire exchange with Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
At 40K or less each, It’s surprisingly good at embarrassing multi million systems design to stop them.
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Sure. But generally speaking with personalised characteristics such as clever/thick, brave/cowardly, warm/cold, diligent/lazy, etc, the variation within a nation's population is much much greater than the variation of the weighted average between nations. This belies the notion of a 'national character'. There's really no such thing. Or, to not be sweeping and dogmatic, since that's what I'm objecting to in the first place, let's say the term is massively overused. It's not a matter of wokery. It's just the bloodless fact of the matter.
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
I'm especially amused by the descriptions of Lebanon and it's people as some kind of utopian idyll - such a place would clearly welcome thousands oh Hezbollan militants with gusto!
They 'welcomed' them because the alternative was Israeli settlers occupying half the country. Hezbollah is the product of the first Israeli invasion of Beirut and instrumental in preventing the second attempted invasion, I'd of thought this sort of blowback would have tempered Israeli land grabs but they’re still gallivanting round the west of Syria.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
At 40K or less each, It’s surprisingly good at embarrassing multi million systems design to stop them.
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
Radar doesn't struggle to see them.
The problem is that all the low end, cheap weapons to hit them haven't been in fashion in most militaries for decades.
Navies have it easier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS works and they are fairly common on military ships. Most light guns on ships that are radar directed will also kill such drones very efficiently.
The problem is on land, where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard and it's ilk have been deprecated and retired. Most of the Geppards ever produced are in Ukraine now, by the way.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
This may have been noted already (apols if so) but not often Labour has something to celebrate, election-wise.
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6) Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5) Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New) Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0) Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
It's worth pointing at that Durham County Council is run by Reform and isn't doing that well.
For Labour in 2029 to do well it probably needs Reform to win a lot of May's elections so that people discover Reform are no better (and often worse) than everyone else.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
At 40K or less each, It’s surprisingly good at embarrassing multi million systems design to stop them.
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
Radar doesn't struggle to see them.
The problem is that all the low end, cheap weapons to hit them haven't been in fashion in most militaries for decades.
Navies have it easier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS works and they are fairly common on military ships. Most light guns on ships that are radar directed will also kill such drones very efficiently.
The problem is on land, where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard and it's ilk have been deprecated and retired. Most of the Geppards ever produced are in Ukraine now, by the way.
Thanks. But is that saying, the new smarter weapons struggle to hit them as efficiently as the old ones?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
This may have been noted already (apols if so) but not often Labour has something to celebrate, election-wise.
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6) Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5) Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New) Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0) Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
It's worth pointing at that Durham County Council is run by Reform and isn't doing that well.
For Labour in 2029 to do well it probably needs Reform to win a lot of May's elections so that people discover Reform are no better (and often worse) than everyone else.
It may be useful to focus on which Councils they could reasonably be expected to hold, or to say win from a minority status now.
Durham has a significant RefUK majority, which has not shrunk that much. But I can see Durham potentially being a case of reduced majority or largest party, but there are enough moving parts to turn it all into "slightly informed guesswork".
Whilst in Kent the wheels are rapidly coming off the charabanc.
This may have been noted already (apols if so) but not often Labour has something to celebrate, election-wise.
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6) Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5) Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New) Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0) Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
It's worth pointing at that Durham County Council is run by Reform and isn't doing that well.
For Labour in 2029 to do well it probably needs Reform to win a lot of May's elections so that people discover Reform are no better (and often worse) than everyone else.
The Reform vote going down is unusual. A harbinger of what is coming for Reform when people get to know them?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
"They brought it on themselves" and "no choice" are non-starters when it comes to justifying attacks on civilians.
What about German civilians who voted for Hitler, in full knowledge of his anti-Semitic insanities?
Millions of Germans did that. Voted for Hitler. And he didn't hide his desires vis a vis Jews or conquering Europe, he wrote entire books about them, prior to his elections
To me that partly justified the bombing of German cities in WW2. Not that it needed justifying, the mere fact that they started the war, brutally invaded everyone, started killing Jews and "sub-humans" from the get-go, and then started the mass bombing of British towns, makes for a just cause in itself.
No, I don't think the inferno bombing was justified on that basis. The justification (if true) would be that it hastened the defeat of the beyond the pale Nazis.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Sure. But generally speaking with personalised characteristics such as clever/thick, brave/cowardly, warm/cold, diligent/lazy, etc, the variation within a nation's population is much much greater than the variation of the weighted average between nations. This belies the notion of a 'national character'. There's really no such thing. Or, to not be sweeping and dogmatic, since that's what I'm objecting to in the first place, let's say the term is massively overused. It's not a matter of wokery. It's just the bloodless fact of the matter.
There's also such a thing as personal character. eg you are an accountant, you act and think like an accountant, you are a quintessential accountant: you are pensive, quite thorough and intellectually cautious, and deeply averse to new ideas, especially ideas that challenge long held perceptions. You always prefer "bloodless facts" because those are safe and unthreatening to your weltanschauung; indeed, you prefer facts that are safe and consoling even if they are untrue, which is dangerous, and leads you into foolish opinions
On the upside, you have an occasional but agreeable dry wit which leavens the site, and you are slightly and weirdly gay; so on the whole I'd say you are a net positive in the PB audit
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Sure. But generally speaking with personalised characteristics such as clever/thick, brave/cowardly, warm/cold, diligent/lazy, etc, the variation within a nation's population is much much greater than the variation of the weighted average between nations. This belies the notion of a 'national character'. There's really no such thing. Or, to not be sweeping and dogmatic, since that's what I'm objecting to in the first place, let's say the term is massively overused. It's not a matter of wokery. It's just the bloodless fact of the matter.
I think there’s a big difference between assertions of racial or genetic stereotypes, and observations of cultural norms.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
At 40K or less each, It’s surprisingly good at embarrassing multi million systems design to stop them.
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
Radar doesn't struggle to see them.
The problem is that all the low end, cheap weapons to hit them haven't been in fashion in most militaries for decades.
Navies have it easier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS works and they are fairly common on military ships. Most light guns on ships that are radar directed will also kill such drones very efficiently.
The problem is on land, where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard and it's ilk have been deprecated and retired. Most of the Geppards ever produced are in Ukraine now, by the way.
Thanks. But is that saying, the new smarter weapons struggle to hit them as efficiently as the old ones?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
I still remember all the soul searching about the sinking of the General Belgrano during the Falklands war, and that was a warship that was engaged in combat actions by a country that had invaded UK territory. The Iranian ship, on the other hand, was nowhere near the war zone and wasn't posing a threat to anyone, but that didn't stop the US (the aggressors in this case) from sinking it without a second thought.
If you're sneering at them, you've chosen a bad time for your sneering
There has never been a more perilous moment for humanity, than right now - with the possible exception of "the African pinchpoint": the unproven theory that at one stage Home sapiens was down to a few thousand individuals, a long long time ago
I'd say the chances that the world ends for humanity in the next 50 years are more like 2-4%. Small, but not vanishingly small
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
Yeah. Okay.
But the bombing of the French fleet, the belgrano, this one the other day, it’s always going to give some controversy around them because of the deaths involved in the surprise duck shoot, isn’t it? Though each case individual at the same time.
I suppose it’s a bit like a death in police custody or arrest, where it’s asked, was such force really necessary in the situation around it.
You have to concede Big G, the US and Israeli administrations you and Kemi want to hand the British Military over to, regard any sort of rules of engagement as woke nonsense, don’t they?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
We're not at war with Iran. Although there is apparently no shortage of psychos on here who think we should be.
The ship was near fucking Sri Lanka. In what way was it a very real danger and to whom?
Sorry to say but I rather enjoyed this Guardian article about the discomfiture of the Dubai-based tax exiles caught in the cross-hairs. Obvs don't wish any of them harm (Mr Tice, please note), but heh.
"Alongside the wealth managers, property agents and taut-skinned trophy wives who always accompany the mega-rich, it attracted its share of Reform-supporting X blue ticks banging on from their beach clubs about London supposedly going to the dogs; influencers seeking luxury backdrops for their unboxing videos; crypto guys, tech bros, and assorted hustlers. But many rungs down the financial ladder behind them came an army of younger temporary workers to clean their pools and nanny for their kids and teach them pilates, many of whom have families back home now worried sick. Gloat if you must that they are now finding out why other people stay home in the rain, but schadenfreude is a grim look when fellow human beings are sleeping in their basements as the tyrannical Iranian regime tries to kill them."
This afternoon's racing from Meydan in Dubai has just started so these economic migrants can enjoy an afternoon's sport instead of cluttering up airport lounges. War, what war?
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
At 40K or less each, It’s surprisingly good at embarrassing multi million systems design to stop them.
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
Radar doesn't struggle to see them.
The problem is that all the low end, cheap weapons to hit them haven't been in fashion in most militaries for decades.
Navies have it easier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS works and they are fairly common on military ships. Most light guns on ships that are radar directed will also kill such drones very efficiently.
The problem is on land, where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard and it's ilk have been deprecated and retired. Most of the Geppards ever produced are in Ukraine now, by the way.
Thanks. But is that saying, the new smarter weapons struggle to hit them as efficiently as the old ones?
Hence the interest in making 70mm unguided rockets into guided weapons. Much cheaper.
But. In Cyprus {I mention Cyprus again, because I’m an expect on it now} not much was fired at the base, yet one cheap thing did pootle through the shadow of the mountains, and hit the bullseye.
Was it built by 16 year old Lebanese airfix enthusiasts as PB suggests, or fired by Robin Hood?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
Yeah. Okay.
But the bombing of the French fleet, the belgrano, this one the other day, it’s always going to give some controversy around them because of the deaths involved in the surprise duck shoot, isn’t it? Though each case individual at the same time.
I suppose it’s a bit like a death in police custody or arrest, where it’s asked, was such force really necessary in the situation around it.
You have to concede Big G, the US and Israeli administrations you and Kemi want to hand the British Military over to, regard any sort of rules of engagement as woke nonsense, don’t they?
I reject your last paragraph entirely
Kemi from day one has said we should be able to attack missile bases that threaten our military in the arena and now Lammy has said the same thing
It has been obvious since the onset that if our middle east bases come under attack our first duty is to eliminate the source of that attack
To hand over this action to the US to do on our behalf is absurd
I am sure the military will know our capabilities and engage accordingly
You mention the Belgrano which was sunk as it was a threat to our own navy
If there were Australians on board the Iranian warship at a time Australia had backed the US then they should not have been on it anyway
This may have been noted already (apols if so) but not often Labour has something to celebrate, election-wise.
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6) Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5) Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New) Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0) Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
It's worth pointing at that Durham County Council is run by Reform and isn't doing that well.
For Labour in 2029 to do well it probably needs Reform to win a lot of May's elections so that people discover Reform are no better (and often worse) than everyone else.
It’s doing fine. No worse than the last lot or the lot before. I’m perfectly happy with them.
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Sure. But generally speaking with personalised characteristics such as clever/thick, brave/cowardly, warm/cold, diligent/lazy, etc, the variation within a nation's population is much much greater than the variation of the weighted average between nations. This belies the notion of a 'national character'. There's really no such thing. Or, to not be sweeping and dogmatic, since that's what I'm objecting to in the first place, let's say the term is massively overused. It's not a matter of wokery. It's just the bloodless fact of the matter.
There's also such a thing as personal character. eg you are an accountant, you act and think like an accountant, you are a quintessential accountant: you are pensive, quite thorough and intellectually cautious, and deeply averse to new ideas, especially ideas that challenge long held perceptions. You always prefer "bloodless facts" because those are safe and unthreatening to your weltanschauung; indeed, you prefer facts that are safe and consoling even if they are untrue, which is dangerous, and leads you into foolish opinions
On the upside, you have an occasional but agreeable dry wit which leavens the site, and you are slightly and weirdly gay; so on the whole I'd say you are a net positive in the PB audit
You're welcome!
That was a bit of a phrase, wasn't it, the 'bloodless fact of the matter'.
So anyway, sounds like we're agreed. National Character - a misleading grandiose term for relatively minor differences at aggregation level between populations. Used sometimes with unpleasant racist overtones and sometimes more innocently.
This may have been noted already (apols if so) but not often Labour has something to celebrate, election-wise.
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6) Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5) Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New) Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0) Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
It's worth pointing at that Durham County Council is run by Reform and isn't doing that well.
For Labour in 2029 to do well it probably needs Reform to win a lot of May's elections so that people discover Reform are no better (and often worse) than everyone else.
The Reform vote going down is unusual. A harbinger of what is coming for Reform when people get to know them?
Is it? My impression is that it has been doing in seats fought in 2025 (which this was). However, that may be because they have elected a Councillor so inadequate that they didn't last a year.
If you're sneering at them, you've chosen a bad time for your sneering
There has never been a more perilous moment for humanity, than right now - with the possible exception of "the African pinchpoint": the unproven theory that at one stage Home sapiens was down to a few thousand individuals, a long long time ago
I'd say the chances that the world ends for humanity in the next 50 years are more like 2-4%. Small, but not vanishingly small
I’m not sure it’s much higher (if higher at all) than during the Cold War. Then you legitimately had people who would let the world burn as collateral damage to a higher ideology. The motivations from most sides now are money and power - attractive propositions but ultimately transactional. Look at Trump - there’s always a deal to be done.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
I still remember all the soul searching about the sinking of the General Belgrano during the Falklands war, and that was a warship that was engaged in combat actions by a country that had invaded UK territory. The Iranian ship, on the other hand, was nowhere near the war zone and wasn't posing a threat to anyone, but that didn't stop the US (the aggressors in this case) from sinking it without a second thought.
In the case of the Belgrano, the UK knew that it was on a mission to attack the Task Force - the Belgrano and it's attendant destroyers formed on axis of the attack and the Argentine carrier the other.
This is because the Americans had completely broken the Argentine codes*. The Argentine military was using electro mechanical wheel cypher systems, which messages had to be manually typed into - think Enigma but fancier and newer. The American break was all done on computer and was being sent by teletype, in real time to the UK. So UK commanders got the Argentine orders to their fleet *before* the Argentine officers received them.
*In large part, because they had sold them to them in the first place.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
We're not at war with Iran. Although there is apparently no shortage of psychos on here who think we should be.
The ship was near fucking Sri Lanka. In what way was it a very real danger and to whom?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
“ You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus”
Nonsense!
I’m the only one talking sense about Cyprus on this blog. You seem to be looking at these events today - and 1974 etc - with an awful, out of date, pro Greek bias. You can’t understand any of this correctly because of your pro-Greek bias IMHO.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
I believe it's no ammunition on board. The Americans could have come along side and demanded surrender.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
Yeah. Okay.
But the bombing of the French fleet, the belgrano, this one the other day, it’s always going to give some controversy around them because of the deaths involved in the surprise duck shoot, isn’t it? Though each case individual at the same time.
I suppose it’s a bit like a death in police custody or arrest, where it’s asked, was such force really necessary in the situation around it.
You have to concede Big G, the US and Israeli administrations you and Kemi want to hand the British Military over to, regard any sort of rules of engagement as woke nonsense, don’t they?
I reject your last paragraph entirely
Kemi from day one has said we should be able to attack missile bases that threaten our military in the arena and now Lammy has said the same thing
It has been obvious since the onset that if our middle east bases come under attack our first duty is to eliminate the source of that attack
To hand over this action to the US to do on our behalf is absurd
I am sure the military will know our capabilities and engage accordingly
You mention the Belgrano which was sunk as it was a threat to our own navy
If there were Australians on board the Iranian warship at a time Australia had backed the US then they should not have been on it anyway
There are nearly certainly personnel from NATO countries on a number of the American ships in the war zone.
Big new psephological analysis on voters Labour is losing to the Green Party, plus the Liberal Democrats and nationalist parties.
Key quote:
Demographically, most progressive defectors are frustrated lower middle class Millennials - not affluent urbanites or a PMC ‘lanyard class’. Though they have liberal social values, many are frustrated graduates; Millennials with a mortgage or rent they are struggling to afford - primary school teachers, IT support or clerical workers. In short, the face of the modern social democratic voter.
Makes sense. Many voters to the left of Labour are people whose salaries don't match their level of educational attainment.
Labour now does best among the highest earners.
It all amounts to the same thing. Those attracted to the populists, left or right or nat, are those who believe they are hard done by, and deserve better. And don't really care if the result is to collapse the entire system. It's a kind of entitlement culture and who knows where it will take us - but nowhere good, that's for sure.
Yes but the crucial extra part is these are largely people who have played by the rules, or what they thought were the rules, only to find the referee's blown his whistle and VAR has ruled against them because the game has changed. They've gone to school, passed their exams and lumbered themselves with debt, but there are no jobs. In America more than here, they've taken the entrepreneurial route and started a business only to be screwed over by a government that they probably voted for.
The system has not played fair so it is no surprise they look for NOTA parties who, like them, blame the Establishment parties of the past few decades.
Looks to me like Axel Springer is controlled by German/Canadian shareholdings while KKR have the largest single shareholding. Not sure it makes any difference since the Telegraph abandoned newspaper of record status for ideological 'purity' some time ago.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
“ You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus”
Nonsense!
I’m the only one talking sense about Cyprus on this blog. You seem to be looking at these events today - and 1974 etc - with an awful, out of date, pro Greek bias. You can’t understand any of this correctly because of your pro-Greek bias IMHO.
Didn"t you say two days ago that you had no pro or anti-Greek bias, MoonRabbit ?
I must say I'm none too convinced, and I find your vehemence on this topic puzzling.
The belief that military options (which on a very basic level involve the cruelllest things imaginable) are made OK or not OK depending on the word of a lawyer, is disturbing. In previous centuries armies had to be blessed by priests. Now it's lawyers. I'm not convinced this is progress.
Yes. As I may have said yesterday, Starmer has (I would say) made broadly the right decisions, for totally the wrong reasons. Iraq was 'legal' (or at least had some form of UN mandate and legal justification). It was also a fudging disaster. UK PMs need to weigh up our approach to foreign conflict, taling into consideration all the likely outcomes, whether there's a viable long-term plan, whether we can afford to engage/support, and what is the greater good. Not whether we can get a letter from Mum that makes it OK.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
I believe it's no ammunition on board. The Americans could have come along side and demanded surrender.
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
You must be joking. Snippet from today's Guardian:
"US president Donald Trump on Thursday again urged Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to strike a deal with Russia, claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin was prepared to reach an agreement. “Zelenskyy, he has to get on the ball, and he has to get a deal done,” Trump said in an interview with Politico. Trump, returning to language he used during a tense White House meeting a year ago where he and vice-president JD Vance publicly berated Zelenskyy, suggested the Ukrainian president was in a weak position and needed to make compromises, saying “Now he’s got even less cards” and repeated his insistence that “Putin is ready to make a deal”, without providing evidence."
Trump is enamoured with Putin. And, sitting beside him, is Tulsi Gabbard, the Kremlin's go-to girl.
As an aside, JD Vance berated Zelensky for not wearing a suit but has not muttered a dicky-bird about his own C-i-C wearing a baseball hat to talk about the Iran war.
So rather than deploy our own destroyers in advance of the start of military operations, we didn’t bother as the US had destroyers in the Med. So, it was hoped or expected that US destroyers would protect Cyprus while denying the US the use of UK bases?
How UNPROTECTED did the UK government leave Cyprus, Willy?
If they didn’t leave it unprotected, what you are pushing here is not just an untruth, a myth, it is unpatriotic and treasonous.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones} All that is hardly a nothing that lets drones and missiles fly in at will.
How many drones and missiles have actually hit Akrotiri? I’ve seen lots told reports about one drone that hit a hanger.
Even with the best air defence network the occasional assault will get through
Well, yes. I think this is a(nother) Starmer comms problem, where Govt silence left room for opposition, opportunists, and media to build an essentially fake narrative around "dither" and "left defenceless". That reflects on both those attacking the Govt, and the Govt itself.
He gave a decent reply at PMQ, but there is little effective media operation.
Its not a fake narrative. Its reality.
Really? Did UK government leave Cyprus completely unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there?
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The panic about sending a T45 is this.
The only anti-ballistic missile system the U.K. possesses is the T45.
So far Iran/Hezbollah have flipped a few drones at Cyprus. They are overgrown model aircraft, carrying 50Kg of explosive at few hundred mph. A SPAAG from 1950 can deal with those.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at Cyprus, nothing currently there would be able to stop it. That’s metric tons of explosive, arriving at Mach 6+
The biggest problem with the drones is the use of wildly inappropriate means to shoot them down, spending valuable and scare resources intended for enemy aircraft and large ballistic missiles.
Outside a few specific uses, such as taking out flammable O&G installations in Russia, their aim is mostly to cause fear and wasted effort. Which is why the Ukranians are now using fast hobby drones and helicopter-mounted guns to take them out.
Why not buy a thousand SPAAGs? - there are tons of ZSU-23 around the world, for example.
Well, the argument went, they won't be useful against tougher threats. So in the UK, all the money went in developing the expensive laser systems. Which are just about approaching service now. But we won't be able to afford lots of those.
So if you don't spend the money on cheap anti-drone systems, you are vulnerable to cheap drones. If you do spend the money, your enemies will try and switch to more expensive systems - faster, stealthier, smarter drones. AKA missiles. Leaving the money you spent on anti-drone systems as a waste.
Moral of the story is you need to take out the factories which produce them
And then the next enemy stockpiles the major components in smaller and smaller places. They can be home assembled, with a screw driver.
I'll bet most of the airframes of the Iranian drones is fibreglass skin, with expanded foam inside to provide strength/support. That's cottage industry level stuff.
Yes they can be home manufactured.
That does of course lead to a more complicated supply chain and slower production. The issue then becomes stopping off key components in say the guidance system . Since these have to be produced in a proper factory I o wonder if there is then a remedy to switch them off when they are activated or do a Mossad Pagers trick and make the missile explode in situ.
The guidance system is probably not much more than a Raspberry Pi. That level of computer board. Bet it's a Linux running some Python. Inertial navigation (a chip) and a Sat Nav Chip to tighten the fix. The basic autopilot to make it fly a course is hobby level model aircraft stuff these days.
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
The Shahed is basically a large model aircraft, with a lawnmower engine at the back and a small bomb at the front. Basic nav module, not particularly accurate but don’t need to be.
At 40K or less each, It’s surprisingly good at embarrassing multi million systems design to stop them.
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
Radar doesn't struggle to see them.
The problem is that all the low end, cheap weapons to hit them haven't been in fashion in most militaries for decades.
Navies have it easier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS works and they are fairly common on military ships. Most light guns on ships that are radar directed will also kill such drones very efficiently.
The problem is on land, where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard and it's ilk have been deprecated and retired. Most of the Geppards ever produced are in Ukraine now, by the way.
Thanks. But is that saying, the new smarter weapons struggle to hit them as efficiently as the old ones?
Hence the interest in making 70mm unguided rockets into guided weapons. Much cheaper.
But. In Cyprus {I mention Cyprus again, because I’m an expect on it now} not much was fired at the base, yet one cheap thing did pootle through the shadow of the mountains, and hit the bullseye.
Was it built by 16 year old Lebanese airfix enthusiasts as PB suggests, or fired by Robin Hood?
Your fancy systems failed us Malmsy!
All system have a percentage chance of hitting the target.
In addition there is the question of targeting. One reason for sending a T45 is that it has a very nice radar and an operations room to coordinate defence over a wide area.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
“ You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus”
Nonsense!
I’m the only one talking sense about Cyprus on this blog. You seem to be looking at these events today - and 1974 etc - with an awful, out of date, pro Greek bias. You can’t understand any of this correctly because of your pro-Greek bias IMHO.
Now you are being silly
I have no Greek or Turkish bias not least because the base is British sovereign territory
It has come under threat and the embarrassment of our inability to send our ship there is off the scale when even Greece and French ships are there
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Sure. But generally speaking with personalised characteristics such as clever/thick, brave/cowardly, warm/cold, diligent/lazy, etc, the variation within a nation's population is much much greater than the variation of the weighted average between nations. This belies the notion of a 'national character'. There's really no such thing. Or, to not be sweeping and dogmatic, since that's what I'm objecting to in the first place, let's say the term is massively overused. It's not a matter of wokery. It's just the bloodless fact of the matter.
There's also such a thing as personal character. eg you are an accountant, you act and think like an accountant, you are a quintessential accountant: you are pensive, quite thorough and intellectually cautious, and deeply averse to new ideas, especially ideas that challenge long held perceptions. You always prefer "bloodless facts" because those are safe and unthreatening to your weltanschauung; indeed, you prefer facts that are safe and consoling even if they are untrue, which is dangerous, and leads you into foolish opinions
On the upside, you have an occasional but agreeable dry wit which leavens the site, and you are slightly and weirdly gay; so on the whole I'd say you are a net positive in the PB audit
You're welcome!
That was a bit of a phrase, wasn't it, the 'bloodless fact of the matter'.
So anyway, sounds like we're agreed. National Character - a misleading grandiose term for relatively minor differences at aggregation level between populations. Used sometimes with unpleasant racist overtones and sometimes more innocently.
PB is a good forum for this sort of thing.
But there are cultural differemces, surely? The Amrricans are chatty, the Dutch are brusque, the Italians wave their hands around and emote. I can accept that that is cultural rather than genetic, but those differences are real. I've just watched a video about why American conpanies jeep failing in Europe,and it is because they persistently underestimate the ways in which Europeans are behaviourally different from a) Americans and b) each other. Or am I missing the point?
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
70% of Iran’s oil goes to CHINA at mates rates discount. If Trump handpicks the next Iranian leader, that oil deal might quite possibly change. Do we assume China is just sat there watching, like a spectator?
China has stockpiled 1.5b barrels of oil.
"Xi Jinping can comfortably tough out a global oil shock for longer than Trump can endure the political heat of exorbitant petrol prices in America."
That's 3 months supply at 16.4bn barrels per day consumption for China. That is just the same length as we hold (if the oil companies are following the rules.)
The USA has about 3 week's worth of strategic reserve. So Ambrose has an argument even if he is exaggerating a little.
What I do not know is how much the USA has outside these official strategic reserves, and how much its rate of reserve depletion will be, given that they supply much of their own oil from the USA.
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
It's always nonsense to attach individual human qualities, either positive (brave, warm, generous) or negative (humourless, uptight, lazy), to national or ethnic groups. In all cases the variation in those things within a group vastly exceeds that between groups.
Despite being nonsense it's very common (esp with men of a certain age and background). Usually, and thankfully, it's not down to racism (although it can be) it's more a conversationalist tic intended to signify (in the speaker) a sense of being well-travelled and worldy-wise.
It's fundamentally racist - see Edward Said and Orientalism. While I have disagreements with some of what he says in that book, the concept of "racial traits" is a pernicious one. Just because it is used positively doesn't change the fundamental problem with such thinking.
Agreed on that. But I was thinking of it more widely. Eg you go to Athens, have a nice trip, get back and say "the Greeks are such lovely people". That isn't racist but it's false - unless you mean most people are lovely and the Greeks are no exception. But if that's what you mean that's what you should say. Put that on your postcard - "Hi from Athens, having a fab time, weather great! And the Greeks are such lovely people, as are people in general of course".
But this isn't true. There really is such a thing as national character. It's Woke nonsense to deny it, just as it is weird Hitlery garbage to emphasise it above all else
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Sure. But generally speaking with personalised characteristics such as clever/thick, brave/cowardly, warm/cold, diligent/lazy, etc, the variation within a nation's population is much much greater than the variation of the weighted average between nations. This belies the notion of a 'national character'. There's really no such thing. Or, to not be sweeping and dogmatic, since that's what I'm objecting to in the first place, let's say the term is massively overused. It's not a matter of wokery. It's just the bloodless fact of the matter.
I think there’s a big difference between assertions of racial or genetic stereotypes, and observations of cultural norms.
Yes. Cultural norms are about behaviour rather than character. But it's easy to drift into sloppy generalisations about a 'national' character because character and behaviour in an individual person are linked.
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
70% of Iran’s oil goes to CHINA at mates rates discount. If Trump handpicks the next Iranian leader, that oil deal might quite possibly change. Do we assume China is just sat there watching, like a spectator?
China has stockpiled 1.5b barrels of oil.
"Xi Jinping can comfortably tough out a global oil shock for longer than Trump can endure the political heat of exorbitant petrol prices in America."
That's 3 months supply at 16.4bn barrels per day. That is just the same length as we hold (if the oil companies are following the rules.)
The USA has about 3 week's worth of strategic reserve. So Ambrose has an argument even if he is exaggerating a little.
What I do not know is how much the USA has outside these official strategic reserves, and how much its rate of reserve depletion will be, given that they supply much of their own oil from the USA.
Some polling data to back up my anecdotal experience that the Americans are very, very opposed to this Iran war. Really notable and practically universal sentiment here.
"...war in Iran is very unpopular. Not merely negative-number ... but worst-ever-support-for-war-when-it-started unpopular. With just 38% of Americans in favor, support for bombing Iran is lower than retrospective support for the war in Iraq was in 2014." gelliottmorris.com/p/polls-us-ira…
Rather like Starmer’s predicament: the left are against because it’s Trump; the MAGA right are against because they are America-first isolationists. All he’s pleasing is a rapidly shrinking cohort of traditional neocons.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
The ship had been taking part in an exercise (an International Fleet Review) with India, and the Indians have said that the exercise required that the ship not be carrying any ammunition at the time. That's how I've understood it; I don't know that we have any confirmation of this. The ship was therefore not (if these details are correct), at that time, capable of damaging anyone's interests. The US knew the rules of the Fleet Review, so they knew the ship was unarmed. It is thus questioned whether torpedoing it was appropriate. They could have just demanded its surrender.
The US is also accused of not helping survivors, which appears to be in breach of the Second Geneva Convention of 1949.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
The ship had been taking part in an exercise (an International Fleet Review) with India, and the Indians have said that the exercise required that the ship not be carrying any ammunition at the time. The ship was therefore not, at that time, capable of damaging anyone's interests. The US knew the rules of the Fleet Review, so they knew the ship was unarmed. It is thus questioned whether torpedoing it was appropriate. They could have just demanded its surrender.
The US is also accused of not helping survivors, which appears to be in breach of the Second Geneva Convention of 1949.
That's a bit academic in a submarine, when they were just off Sri Lanka, and there was another Iranian ship close by.
Israel’s opposition leader has called for Israel to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the Yellow Line in Gaza, by removing Lebanese villages there.
Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, told a local television channel that Israel would “have no choice” but to create a “sterile zone” in southern Lebanon. “It might be unaesthetic, or unpleasant, to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” he said, “but they brought it upon themselves.”
Sounds like the usual Isrseli rhetoric we've come to know and love. As my friend who recently returned from a work trip there said, they've become a highly radicalised state.
The Israelis are wild animals. I have been texting some friends in Beirut and just when Lebanon gets its act together Israel bombs again. the irony is that the first time I went there to work Beirut was riddled with bullet holes and the Israelis weren't badly thought of.
The Lebanese are probably my favourite people in the world and they really don't deserve this. They are generous hospitable bright tri lingual and just very sweet in the most old fashined sense of the word.
The girls have too much plastic surgery but that's just something they do.My last ad for them was using Miss Lebanion who came in the top 3 of Miss World She was funny like a lot of Lebanese. When I think of all those really rounded attractive people and I see the arrogant self important Israelis it makes me want to vomit.
They tell the story of when their President went to visit President Xi in China he asked what the Lebanese population was? "Three million".He said. "
"Three million? Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"The Israelis are wild animals." They are not alone in this though Roger, are they? Oct 7th wasn't exactly a picnic for the victims. Tens of thousands of Iranians killed by their own government for the crime of protesting is not a great look.
How stupid are those people who assume that because someone condemns Bibi for indiscriminately flattening Gaza and now Beirut and Tehran that they are fanatical supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs?
Calling Israelis "Wild animals" is not the same as condemning Bibi. That's the point. I am sick and tired of the polarised extremes on here. There is a lot of nastiness on all sides. Israel has been under attack just for existing for decades. They were attacked to start the war in Gaza. Very much like the Nazi's calling Bomber Command "terror fliers" its a bit rich for people to call Israeli's wild animals after what was done to them.
I just want it all to stop. No more bombs, no more people being killed. Fuck knows how we get there but idiotic comments on PB are not the way.
But you are someone justifying Gaza and Beirut because of 7/10/23.
Now I have no problem with eradicating Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs, although I believe making an effort to ensure women and children do not become collateral is a good idea. Neither Bibi nor Hegseth consider this. Now the idea of regime change and a free Iran is a fantastic idea, but that is not what Trump is targeting.
Perhaps if you read and watched alternatives to the Telegraph and GBNews you might have a broader view of what is going on.
I don't read the telegraph or any newspaper now (they are out of date in the modern age) and I have never watched GB news. Have you mistaken me for somebody else? I mean I know we are all SeanT and all that, but you are presuming rather a lot about me based on my objecting to Roger's constant anti Israeli bile.
It's also interesting to note the descriptions of entire nations/ethnic groups as arrogant or beautiful.
Reminds me of something, that does - the time I met the Nigerian Hitler fan at Lagos Airport.
I'm especially amused by the descriptions of Lebanon and it's people as some kind of utopian idyll - such a place would clearly welcome thousands oh Hezbollan militants with gusto!
They 'welcomed' them because the alternative was Israeli settlers occupying half the country. Hezbollah is the product of the first Israeli invasion of Beirut and instrumental in preventing the second attempted invasion, I'd of thought this sort of blowback would have tempered Israeli land grabs but they’re still gallivanting round the west of Syria.
Do you not think they've overstayed their welcome?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Why
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
Yeah. Okay.
But the bombing of the French fleet, the belgrano, this one the other day, it’s always going to give some controversy around them because of the deaths involved in the surprise duck shoot, isn’t it? Though each case individual at the same time.
I suppose it’s a bit like a death in police custody or arrest, where it’s asked, was such force really necessary in the situation around it.
You have to concede Big G, the US and Israeli administrations you and Kemi want to hand the British Military over to, regard any sort of rules of engagement as woke nonsense, don’t they?
I reject your last paragraph entirely
Kemi from day one has said we should be able to attack missile bases that threaten our military in the arena and now Lammy has said the same thing
It has been obvious since the onset that if our middle east bases come under attack our first duty is to eliminate the source of that attack
To hand over this action to the US to do on our behalf is absurd
I am sure the military will know our capabilities and engage accordingly
You mention the Belgrano which was sunk as it was a threat to our own navy
If there were Australians on board the Iranian warship at a time Australia had backed the US then they should not have been on it anyway
The AUSTRALIANS are on the US sub! 🙄 hence the phrase “cry your eyes out Kemi”.
The Australians were on the US sub joining in the yeehaaa’s and back slapping. And we both know, Patel would have LOVED to have been in there with them.
Now they are at the point of just lobbing in dumb bombs to wipe out Iranian kit, Trump can probably stand firm. If Iran is still able to send out material numbers of weapons to the Gulf states that the US/Israel can't knock down, it is certainly trickier. But a lot of effort is going in to making sure that doesn't happen.
It's obviously another grift for Trump, like Venezuela, where making Trump/USA richer is the only concern.
With Gaza, Venezuela, his threats to Greenland, and now Iran, there is absolutely no concern by Trump what happens to the citizens of those places. Just what he can get out of it. Cuba next, Canada later, more to come no doubt.
Washington Post report claiming Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran on the whereabouts of U.S. assets.
If true, we really are at a dangerous crossroads.
Yes, I can quite imagine Trump turning his fire on Russia if that's verified. We're in WW3 territory here.
You must be joking. Snippet from today's Guardian:
"US president Donald Trump on Thursday again urged Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to strike a deal with Russia, claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin was prepared to reach an agreement. “Zelenskyy, he has to get on the ball, and he has to get a deal done,” Trump said in an interview with Politico. Trump, returning to language he used during a tense White House meeting a year ago where he and vice-president JD Vance publicly berated Zelenskyy, suggested the Ukrainian president was in a weak position and needed to make compromises, saying “Now he’s got even less cards” and repeated his insistence that “Putin is ready to make a deal”, without providing evidence."
Trump is enamoured with Putin. And, sitting beside him, is Tulsi Gabbard, the Kremlin's go-to girl.
When Trump halted all funding for Ukraine, he threw in his cards. It's Europe's backyard and Europe's security, and Europe is paying.
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
As I read it, everyone in the show - like Cruffts for Warships - had to hand all their bullets in to organisers who locked them in a safe. And obviously I expect gave you a numbered ticket you handed over to get them back.
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
“ You do talk some nonsense at times including on Cyprus”
Nonsense!
I’m the only one talking sense about Cyprus on this blog. You seem to be looking at these events today - and 1974 etc - with an awful, out of date, pro Greek bias. You can’t understand any of this correctly because of your pro-Greek bias IMHO.
Now you are being silly
I have no Greek or Turkish bias not least because the base is British sovereign territory
It has come under threat and the embarrassment of our inability to send our ship there is off the scale when even Greece and French ships are there
Firstly.
Did UK government leave Cyprus unprotected? The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there? It’s already likely the best protected runway in the whole Middle East right now even without Dragon.
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
"The Kremlin has reportedly passed information on the locations of several US assets since the start of the war on Saturday, according to the Washington Post who spoke to three intelligence officials."
Worrying stuff, if true.
Britain’s Oil Companies had monopoly over Irans oil. Britain also had a special relationship with the USA. Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won. Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
AUSTRALIANS were ON BOARD the US sub which, without warning, blew up an unarmed {for the show it was like a gun with all it bullets removed} Iranian ship the other day. Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
Do you have a clear defintion of that "unarmed"?
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
I believe it's no ammunition on board. The Americans could have come along side and demanded surrender.
Risky business because if they are wrong about no ammo the sub is fucked.
The US could have just asked the Sri Lankan Navy to intern it as they did with the other Iranian ship. That would take it off the board without killing 80 mostly young sailors.
It wasn't about any military threat the Dena posed. It was about wanton cruelty (which MAGA and the tories love) and generating dramatic video for TV and social media (which MAGA loves and the tories would love if they were capable of generating it which they aren't).
Comments
eg the Jews are clever. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115, one standard deviation above the norm. Or, if you don't like IQ, look at their achievements per capita. eg Jews have won around 22% of all Nobel prizes. Yet they represent 0.2% of the global population. Cf chess grandmasters, Fields medals, CEOs etc etc
Is "cleverness" a characteristic? I'd say so. Jews are clever
Similarly, Italians as a people are on average way more garrulous and extrovert than, say, a Finn or a Swede, let alone an Inuit. Everybody knows this is true. The causes are opaque - climate? Genes? What? But it is obviously the case. That doesn't mean every Italian is an extrovert chancer, nor that every Swede tends to be colder and more introspective, but there is a clear tendency
Nothing else leads political popularity in the US as much as petrol prices.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tarot-reading-gone-wrong-jury-142415077.html
“A TikTok influencer who tried to solve a real-life murder case using spiritual intuition has now been ordered to pay millions for it. Ashley Guillard, a Texas-based content creator known for her tarot card readings on high-profile cases, found herself on the losing end of a defamation lawsuit.
“She accused University of Idaho history professor Rebecca Scofield of masterminding the 2022 murders of four students, all based on what she called her psychic insights. A federal jury in Boise didn't buy it, hitting Guillard with a $10 million judgment on February 27, 2026.”
You could easily end up with a no-solder setup and the software would be on a memory stick. You can get kits to most of this on the internet for hobbyists.
A friend, a couple of years before Ukraine, had a model sailplane/aircraft which would fly a planned course, hands off, travelling quite a few miles.
"Read the standing orders !"
He confirms we can attack missiles sites that threaten our military
Same as Kemi has said from day 1
BBC Breakfast@BBCBreakfast
'Yes, we can take down sites that are anticipating attacking our people'
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told #BBCBreakfast 'defensive action' could include targeting military positions in Iran that could hit UK interests in the Middle East
https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/
Andrew Neil@afneil
I really think he’s just making it up as he goes along.
Are we really going to consider taking out Iranian missiles sites?
That would effectively join us with Israel and the US in their attacks on Iran.
Does he really mean that?
And with what would we attack them?
PS to this former foreign secretary — Cyprus is not in NATO. Ask the Turks.
https://x.com/afneil/status/2029867385809748461
Andrew Neil@afneil
It’s now clear Lammy (not for the first time) has put his foot in it. 10 Downing St now launching a clean up operation.
These people are simply out of their depth — bad enough in peacetime but a deadly drawback in time of war.
https://x.com/afneil/status/2029874894335275358
The lesson from this, and from Putin's writings, is always to take these people at face value or, if you like, their own value. Don't over-interpret.
If they write, or speak, like megalomaniac sociopaths then guess what, they are megalomaniac sociopaths. Act accordingly.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5fWNu3JqDMEIKqyVM60zpD?si=JXN2mWeZRv6Miwaj7EERWg&ct=2&t=2
Behind that special relationship, the US was doing everything it could do to take away Britains monopoly of Irans Oil and get it for US oil companies. And in this fight the USA won.
Yet outwardly, everyone is smiling and shaking hands as though the special bit of the relationship is good will.
Why think of and mention only Russia? If Trump is on verge of getting Irans oil, history books in 70 years time might explain, behind the scenes, China, France, UK, just about everybody, all working together to stop US getting Irans oil, that we were effectively belligerent against the USA and Australia during this crisis.
Faytuks Network
@FaytuksNetwork
·
3h
BREAKING: Azerbaijan is withdrawing diplomats from Iran, closing its embassy in Tehran, and raising the readiness of its military forces, the Azerbaijani FM says
Murton ward, County Durham, by-election:
Griffiths, Julie Ann (Lab) 1,004 - 50.6% (+17.6)
Bell, Theo Samuel (Ref) 786 - 39.6% (-4.5)
Short, Isaac Thomas (Green) 95 - 4.8% (New)
Luckhurst, Dorothy Ann (Con) 61 - 3.1% (-2.0)
Thompson, Neil Peter (Lib) 38 - 1.9% (-2.3)
Lab gain from Reform
Murton it should be said was, formerly, iron-clad Labour. Ex-colliery.
All the same, shows that there is a definite thing about anti-Reform tactical voting. It's why Farage has a much smaller chance of becoming PM than many people think.
Kill them, kill them all!
Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺
@ejmalrai
1h
BreakingNews:
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's son, a soldier in the Israeli forces, has been hit and severely wounded during a fire exchange with Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.
https://x.com/ejmalrai/status/2029891831404650651?s=20
That’s not the answer to what I was putting though. 120 days is short term.
I was putting it there, 70% of Iran’s Oil on mates rates to China. Contract Over. Gone in the short, Medium and LONG term.
If you were in charge of any country on earth faced with that, would you be sanguine, gardening in potting shed right now?
Bibi has more than enough to win his election - he expect the plug to be pulled any moment. Trump needs to be helped onto the off ramp pretty damn quick.
I rejoice when bad people suffer misfortune
You love it when people are hurt
He/She/It bathes in others blood
You guys would know more about this than me, but is it something to do with radar and detection struggling with it?
With embarrassment of the vaunted state of art anti drone systems, there’s not just that security element it was designed to get right, but the commercial element of who will now buy it off you?
The problem is that all the low end, cheap weapons to hit them haven't been in fashion in most militaries for decades.
Navies have it easier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS works and they are fairly common on military ships. Most light guns on ships that are radar directed will also kill such drones very efficiently.
The problem is on land, where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard and it's ilk have been deprecated and retired. Most of the Geppards ever produced are in Ukraine now, by the way.
Cry your eyes out Priti and Kemi. and Big G.
For Labour in 2029 to do well it probably needs Reform to win a lot of May's elections so that people discover Reform are no better (and often worse) than everyone else.
AIUI it would be "gun not loaded today" rather than "all the shells left back in Iran".
The Telegraph is now owned by a pro-EU German.
Telegraph to be sold to Axel Springer for £575m
German publisher gatecrashes The Daily Mail’s planned takeover in an all-cash deal
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/03/06/telegraph-sold-to-axel-springer-for-575m/
Durham has a significant RefUK majority, which has not shrunk that much. But I can see Durham potentially being a case of reduced majority or largest party, but there are enough moving parts to turn it all into "slightly informed guesswork".
Whilst in Kent the wheels are rapidly coming off the charabanc.
This was a sophisticated Iranian warship that in a war could have seriously damaged British interests, military and people
War causes untold innocent casualties and it is regrettable
“Up next in the arena, ladies and gentlemen… to think, some countries around the world use shiny new little models like this, as target practice.”
On the upside, you have an occasional but agreeable dry wit which leavens the site, and you are slightly and weirdly gay; so on the whole I'd say you are a net positive in the PB audit
You're welcome!
We are in a war, not of our choosing, but war it is and that ship was a very real danger
But a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(missile) is 2 million euro plus the cost of flying hours on a modern fighter.
Hence the interest in making 70mm unguided rockets into guided weapons. Much cheaper.
There has never been a more perilous moment for humanity, than right now - with the possible exception of "the African pinchpoint": the unproven theory that at one stage Home sapiens was down to a few thousand individuals, a long long time ago
I'd say the chances that the world ends for humanity in the next 50 years are more like 2-4%. Small, but not vanishingly small
But the bombing of the French fleet, the belgrano, this one the other day, it’s always going to give some controversy around them because of the deaths involved in the surprise duck shoot, isn’t it? Though each case individual at the same time.
I suppose it’s a bit like a death in police custody or arrest, where it’s asked, was such force really necessary in the situation around it.
You have to concede Big G, the US and Israeli administrations you and Kemi want to hand the British Military over to, regard any sort of rules of engagement as woke nonsense, don’t they?
The ship was near fucking Sri Lanka. In what way was it a very real danger and to whom?
Was it built by 16 year old Lebanese airfix enthusiasts as PB suggests, or fired by Robin Hood?
Your fancy systems failed us Malmsy!
Kemi from day one has said we should be able to attack missile bases that threaten our military in the arena and now Lammy has said the same thing
It has been obvious since the onset that if our middle east bases come under attack our first duty is to eliminate the source of that attack
To hand over this action to the US to do on our behalf is absurd
I am sure the military will know our capabilities and engage accordingly
You mention the Belgrano which was sunk as it was a threat to our own navy
If there were Australians on board the Iranian warship at a time Australia had backed the US then they should not have been on it anyway
So anyway, sounds like we're agreed. National Character - a misleading grandiose term for relatively minor differences at aggregation level between populations. Used sometimes with unpleasant racist overtones and sometimes more innocently.
PB is a good forum for this sort of thing.
This is because the Americans had completely broken the Argentine codes*. The Argentine military was using electro mechanical wheel cypher systems, which messages had to be manually typed into - think Enigma but fancier and newer. The American break was all done on computer and was being sent by teletype, in real time to the UK. So UK commanders got the Argentine orders to their fleet *before* the Argentine officers received them.
*In large part, because they had sold them to them in the first place.
Nonsense!
I’m the only one talking sense about Cyprus on this blog.
You seem to be looking at these events today - and 1974 etc - with an awful, out of date, pro Greek bias.
You can’t understand any of this correctly because of your pro-Greek bias IMHO.
The system has not played fair so it is no surprise they look for NOTA parties who, like them, blame the Establishment parties of the past few decades.
https://x.com/zarahsultana/status/2029904042420240827
David Lammy belongs in The Hague.
I must say I'm none too convinced, and I find your vehemence on this topic puzzling.
No deal only unconditional surrender
Bart, crack open the Kleenex
https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/2029919790509208062?s=46&t=d8CnRhyZJ-m4vy0k55W8XQ
In addition there is the question of targeting. One reason for sending a T45 is that it has a very nice radar and an operations room to coordinate defence over a wide area.
I have no Greek or Turkish bias not least because the base is British sovereign territory
It has come under threat and the embarrassment of our inability to send our ship there is off the scale when even Greece and French ships are there
The USA has about 3 week's worth of strategic reserve. So Ambrose has an argument even if he is exaggerating a little.
What I do not know is how much the USA has outside these official strategic reserves, and how much its rate of reserve depletion will be, given that they supply much of their own oil from the USA.
"...war in Iran is very unpopular. Not merely negative-number ... but worst-ever-support-for-war-when-it-started unpopular. With just 38% of Americans in favor, support for bombing Iran is lower than retrospective support for the war in Iraq was in 2014." gelliottmorris.com/p/polls-us-ira…
https://x.com/shashj/status/2029897209613836554?s=46
Rather like Starmer’s predicament: the left are against because it’s Trump; the MAGA right are against because they are America-first isolationists. All he’s pleasing is a rapidly shrinking cohort of traditional neocons.
The US is also accused of not helping survivors, which appears to be in breach of the Second Geneva Convention of 1949.
Followed by him picking the new leader.
And someone complained about "TDS" earlier.
The Australians were on the US sub joining in the yeehaaa’s and back slapping.
And we both know, Patel would have LOVED to have been in there with them.
Her 20 billion headroom is evaporating with bond rates 4.66 and seemingly rises by the minute
With Gaza, Venezuela, his threats to Greenland, and now Iran, there is absolutely no concern by Trump what happens to the citizens of those places. Just what he can get out of it. Cuba next, Canada later, more to come no doubt.
It's Europe's backyard and Europe's security, and Europe is paying.
Trump can go do one.
And btw, you orange fuckwit, it's "fewer cards".
Did UK government leave Cyprus unprotected?
The Cyprus government and Kemi’s Tories and you, have been braying and shouty all week, it was left unprotected by the British government.
The protection in place all week, In the air: Six F-35B Lightning II Stealth Jets, 10 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, Two Wildcat HMA2 Helicopters equipped with Martlet, three Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft and two MQ-9B Protector RG1 - on the ground the Sky Sabre Missile System, Giraffe AMB radar and CAMM missiles {capable of tracking multiple targets and intercepting threats at ranges of up to 25km} ORCUS Counter-UAS System {specialized electronic warfare suite specially designed to detect and jam drones}
If we are playing this straight, not over excited silly buggers looking for party political angles all time during time of war and peril - all that already in place is hardly nothing - how can you possibly push the line the UK government left British bases on Cyprus unprotected and unable to defend themselves, until Dragon gets there?
And, of course, add to all that already in place from UK government, how Cyprus quickly had additional help in the water, air and on land from UKs European Allies who live locally - so what on earth creates such a panic for Dragon to get there? It’s already likely the best protected runway in the whole Middle East right now even without Dragon.
This is nothing more than semantics and political spin, building up the trivial into something it really isn’t. Isn’t it? Technically, there is, and never has been, an issue here, has there?
The US could have just asked the Sri Lankan Navy to intern it as they did with the other Iranian ship. That would take it off the board without killing 80 mostly young sailors.
It wasn't about any military threat the Dena posed. It was about wanton cruelty (which MAGA and the tories love) and generating dramatic video for TV and social media (which MAGA loves and the tories would love if they were capable of generating it which they aren't).